'Epistemic' Conversation Analysis and 'Radical' Ethnomethodology
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‘Epistemic’ Conversation Analysis and ‘Radical’ Ethnomethodology: a hybrid study with a focus on advice. Roman Pankow 10000813 Research Master’s social sciences, GSSS, University of Amsterdam Supervisor: dr. Gerben Moerman Second reader: dr. Bregje de Kok 14/04/2018 Amsterdam Summary The following master’s thesis ‘Epistemic’ Conversation Analysis and ‘Radical’ Ethnomethodology: a hybrid study with a focus on advice is motivated by a recent debate that emerged in the journal Discourse Studies edited by Teun van Dijk. In two special issues ‘The epistemics of Epistemics’ (Lynch & Macbeth 2016a) and ‘Epistemics – The rebuttal special issue’ (Drew 2018a) representatives of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis rallied to consider the recent research on “epistemics” in talk-in-interaction. By taking up the challenge of presenting a study in conversation analysis afflicted by the emergence of epistemics that is still recognizable as ethnomethodological, the study answers the question of how the conceptual tools developed in this epistemic research could be utilized to understand the methodological and conceptual repertoire of these two research traditions against this new horizon. The thesis responds thereby to the invitation from ethnomethodologists commenting from the sidelines to consider the future of the discipline by orienting the research tools inwardly in search of a new course (cf. Anderson & Sharrock 2017) and functions thus as an original contribution to the emerging debate characterized by considering novelties in the conceptual repertoires from the standpoint of an invocation of the past. Since this invocation consists of the writings and teachings of Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, Gail Jefferson and Harold Garfinkel remembered through the references and citations found in the writings of the clashing authors, the study starts with an overview of this past in search of central theoretical and methodological notions that could be reconsidered through the lens of epistemics. This results in a presentation of the methodological policies for understanding actors and actions through the central conversation analytical methodology of the next turn proof procedure. After the epistemic innovations are discussed, the Jeffersonian renderings of naturally occurring advice sequences in preventive pediatric health services in a large municipality in the Netherlands will be introduced. This corpuses enables a demonstration of showing the practical contingencies inherent in conceptual glosses. Conversation analysis afflicted with epistemic research is shown to point to the what else underlying the asymmetries of the action “advice” in conversation analytical institutional talk research and invites a reconsideration of neighboring notions as “actor” “member” and “identity” through two extended case analyses. These concepts and their usage in literature seem to obscure the practical accomplishments necessary for their recognizability as concepts. Furthermore, since the epistemic literature seems to rely on unexamined commonsense relationships between “actor”, “action” and “institution”, a suggestion will be made to understand these conceptual relationships as practical accomplishments. 1 Contents Summary ................................................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 3 Ethnomethodological Roots ............................................................................................................ 6 Theoretical/methodological framework ................................................................................................ 10 “Policies” of Ethnomethodology in relation to Conversation Analysis ............................................ 10 Formalizing descriptions ............................................................................................................... 11 Understanding ............................................................................................................................... 12 Members/Identities– Indexicality/Context– Actions/Actors ......................................................... 13 Next turn proof procedure ............................................................................................................. 16 Accounting for the epistemic order ................................................................................................... 18 The analytic “armamentarium” relevant to the epistemic research agenda .................................. 19 Hydraulics ..................................................................................................................................... 20 Oh and other potential indexes for assessing knowledge status.................................................... 22 Spatial metaphors: creeks in status and open realms .................................................................... 23 Deontic authority .......................................................................................................................... 25 Ethics, corpus and transcriptions ...................................................................................................... 26 Advice: a reading .............................................................................................................................. 28 Advice extent of the definition: preliminary observations .................................................................... 29 Advice: Practices in sight .................................................................................................................. 32 Advice formation: The importance of knowledge transmission ....................................................... 35 Advice and knowledge: the role of asymmetries .............................................................................. 38 Deontic underpinning: contested rejectables .................................................................................... 41 Advice and “identity” or a focus on actors ....................................................................................... 44 Conclusion and reflection ..................................................................................................................... 52 Literature .............................................................................................................................................. 54 Appendix A ....................................................................................................................................... 62 (Field)Notes .......................................................................................................................................... 63 2 Introduction In the most recent newsletter of the EMCA section of the American Sociological Association, chairs Liberman and Nishizaka describe the current predicament of the section as a “glass half full” (2018: 1-3). Lively debates are organized, but the section struggles with maintaining the required minimum of 150 members as their numbers started to diminish after reaching this in 2013. Albeit the newsletter is addressed to the “dear EMCA Community”, a curious look into one of the leading contemporary publication outlets for professionals working in this community, Discourse Studies, suggests that the joining of the EM of Ethnomethodology and the CA of Conversation Analysis could be described as a precarious situation. Against a background rife with orientations to leading figures from the disciplines’ past, a discussion emerged in and around two special issues of this journal, ‘The epistemics of Epistemics’ (Lynch & Macbeth 2016a) and ‘Epistemics – the rebuttal’ (Drew 2018a) (mapped in figure 1), that show clear cleavages in potential future trajectories of what is currently presented to the rest of professional sociology as kindred endeavors. Whereas the authors responsible for the ‘epistemics of Epistemics’ special issue position themselves as inspired by what was once ‘radical’ in ethnomethodology the latter set of authors is defending innovations, specifically around the theme of epistemics, within the field of conversation analysis. As subsequent interventions and digitally published rejoinders based on draft materials suggest that the future of the disciplines is at stake, it might be disheartening to note that arguments range from being focused on theoretical issues to ad hominems to highly specific technical discussions about the correct line for placing a pause in transcriptions. One might thus start to question the extent in which proponents of these research traditions should really be addressed as one “dear … community”. Figure 1. A representation of the EMCA community directly involved with the two special issues of Discourse Studies, a journal edited by Teun van Dijk.i 3 While ethnomethodologists from Manchester were invited by the guest editor of the epistemics of Epistemic special issue, Michael Lynch, to share their concerns about the disciplines in light of this new research on epistemics, they, as per Anderson (2016) remained characteristically indifferent and were not especially concerned with this trend of “constructivism”.ii Although the special issue cast the research on epistemics of Heritage (e.g. 2008; 2011; 2012a; 2012b; 2012c; 2012d; 2013a), some co-authored with